Monday, March 27, 2017

I really like the resurgence of artistic pastimes in recent years. The paint your own pottery studios, the wine and painting shops; they meet our need to create beauty. Choose Friendship has found a way to bring home the experience of painting with an instructor!

My Painting Party pairs the desire to create with today's technology, making it easy for anyone, ages 8 and up, to paint recognizable works of art.

The My Painting Party app is very user friendly. It walks you through your options, one screen at a time.

Brianna, who is 17, selected an advanced painting, because she has quite a bit of artistic experience. Hannah, who is 9, will start with the beginner level. As a homeschooler, I love the fact that I can use this app with all my children, or even for hosting a party or playdate with my kids' friends.

Of the advanced options, Brianna selected the Anchor piece. There are video instructions for a total of 18 different paintings in the 3 skill levels: 8 beginner works, 7 intermediate options, and 3 advanced choices. (There's even a unicorn painting for my LLR friends!)

The My Painting Party kit comes with everything you need to make 3 masterpieces. It has brushes in 3 sizes, with nice squishy grips on the handles. There are 5 colors of paint, which can be mixed to create endless colors and shades. And there are 3 canvases with nifty stand up easels on the back.

Brianna chose to do some blending on her background, so it's not exactly like the example, but it's her own, unique interpretation of it.

Once she had the background painted, she paused the step-by-step video instructions to allow the paint time to dry.

Soon it was time for the anchor. You can also see the pencil marks she's drawn to plan for the next part of the painting.

Choose Friendship has generously offered one of my readers a free My Painting Party kit! Enter using the Rafflecopter below.

Brianna's finished masterpiece. Having seen Bri work on this painting, Hannah is excited to have her turn. I will be buying additional canvases so that we can work our way through the whole series. I have found video art lessons to be a great addition to our homeschool, and I'm looking forward to sharing more beautiful works of art from my students with you.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

I hope you had a nice St. Patrick's Day! Prior to my Ancestry DNA test, I didn't know I was 18% Irish, so this year the holiday has more significance for me. Did you know that "saint" Patrick taught people to read and write as he traveled from village to village? I decided to read some old Irish tales as part of my way of celebrating.

I gave Jack a solar science kit with 6 different models to build, thinking this would be good hands on science.

However, he had a problem with the motor. Josiah tried to help him and said one of the pieces is the wrong size. I haven't messed with it yet, but it has not been the hit I was hoping for so far.

Miss Katie finished book one of Spelling You See level B and started book 2. Unfortunately, she's 7 weeks behind in spelling, so we'll be doing some summer school in that area. Jack and Hannah are only 2 weeks behind now. We have been working really hard to catch up!

I don't ask questions. I just snap the picture. Bri got asked to prom this week. Talk about planning ahead! It's still a month away.

We celebrated the first day with temps over 80* with frozen yogurt! (Hannah was sitting next to me, Bri was at a baseball game.) We also celebrated Pi Day (3.14) with pizza pies, but I didn't take a picture of that. Eli got asked to the Sadie Hawkins dance, which was this week, but it was super casual, and I don't have a picture to share. He did bring home some tiny little photo booth pictures, which were cute.

We all found some green to wear for St. Patrick's Day!

And we are working on making rainbow jello cups. Daddy couldn't find purple, so we mixed blue and black cherry.

Here we've got purple and blue set, and we're getting ready to add...

...green! Green jello is my favorite. My grandma used to make it for me when I was a little girl. She even had a little green glass bowl with feet to put it in. ...I wonder what weird little things my kids and grandkids will remember about me?

My Sam photo dog tag came in the mail. I had one with Zach's picture when he was in boot camp. Keeps them close to my heart. We got our "travel phone call" from Sam this week. First time I've heard his voice since January. It was only 3 minutes, but he sounds good. I'm really looking forward to his graduation next month!

We made rainbow necklaces by stringing generic fruit circle cereal on satin cord. I thought about dipping the ends of the satin cord in Mod Podge and letting it dry to make it easier for the girls to string the loops, but time got away from me, and they did just fine. Satin cord is more sturdy and rigid than yarn is.

Since Brayden was coming to spend the weekend with us, I made one with the kids and gave it to Brayden later.

I think they turned out pretty cute.

I'm hoping we get more school work done this week. Last week I had a bit of spring fever, and excused the kids to go play after spelling most mornings. We did, however, finish up Farmer Boy and move on to Charlotte's Web in Literature. And we began a new read aloud, in preparation for our trip next month!

Although not every single project was a hit, I really like this series.

I would really like to order another disc.

I think we would finish another one by the end of the school year, but I'm also trying to focus more on using up what we have around the house, so maybe I'll just do Pinterest ideas for the rest of the year.

Both Brianna and Eli have been willing to help out from time to time by scoring the other kids' work, which I really appreciate. Getting backed up on corrections is one of the hardest parts of homeschooling for me.

The weather is nice, and we got to play at the park!

So happy to see spring arriving here. The trees are bursting into bloom, the daffodils are up, I'm not freezing cold all the time.

Hannah and Jack discovered foos ball when we attended an adoption fundraiser dessert auction at a local church. We came home with a plate of cookies, a pan of brownies, and a box of ice cream cone cupcakes.

I had a birthday. My dad sent me flowers.

And Paul took us out to dinner at Black Bear Diner.

Paul's burger looked a little bit scary when it arrived.

Dentist appointments for 4 of us this week. I'm so glad our dental office will take them in pairs or groups, lol.

Our next Groovy Lab box is about flight.

We're learning about wing shape, and lift, and all sorts of interesting things.

I've always been a holiday craft kind of person, but since I did the Ancestry DNA test and discovered I'm 18% Irish, I feel like I need to step up my game for St. Patrick's Day this year.

So we made these really cute construction paper rainbows.

And I read the kids The Story of St. Patrick. Did you know he taught literacy? He was a Britton, who went around to Irish villages, teaching the people to read and write, and telling them about God. So reading a book is a great way to celebrate.

We have various logic puzzles around the house, and this one keeps getting left out on poor Katie's desk. She can do it now! I'm so thrilled!

I liked how they really took off with their own ideas. In fact, Jack included some thumb print art in his next letter to Sam.

Sam's old room is getting PAINT! I'm so thrilled. We picked a sage green, and it looks really nice.

So, this isn't how it looks. Brianna made apple juice, and she was pouring it into the glass on the desk, but the green shirt, and the pitcher... It looked like she was "indulging" on St Patrick's Day.

Little Miss Katie has finished her first grade math book! Woo hoo! She's working on XtraMath (an online drill site) while I figure out what to do next. I thought I was going to have her use a math app on my iPad, but my iPad is being stupid.

Hey, look! More hands on science.

We made our own airfoil. This project called for the use of some air dry clay.

Which led to the kids playing with the clay. (Hannah's shirt that we glittered last year still fits!)

So, we'll call this "creative art free play" since we were done with book work for the morning.

And there were several airplanes made, which made it relevant to our science study.

And then this weekend got away from me, too! I was much better about posting every week when I was on the Review Crew, and was required to have an active blog!